A new perspective on homework... inspire instead of assign!

I have a new perspective on homework after the last year. The 2015-16 school year was the hardest year of my life. It started off great. I celebrated the end of summer with a great concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater, and showed up to work with a smile and enthusiasm for a new year. Everything seemed to be going well. I had a great first day of school meeting all of my new seventh graders and was so excited to embark on my first full year teaching in a 1:1 middle school science class.

Then LIFE happened.

That night, my mother who lived with me so I could help her with some serious heart issues, called me to her room in horrible pain. By 2 am, we were sitting in the local ER and hearing that my mother had extensive lung cancer that had spread to many places in her body. It was terminal. That marked the beginning of the hardest year of my life.

Thankfully, I have a loving and supportive husband and family (including some friends who might as well be family), and a community of colleagues that supported me throughout the ordeal of helping my mother try to extend and enjoy her time with us and eventually to decide it was time to die.

What I never expected in all of this was how thankful I would be to my daughter's 2nd grade teacher. At back-to-school night, just 2 weeks after my mother's diagnosis, I sat in my daughter's 2nd grade classroom with all the other parents, wanting to know just what my daughter would be doing with her days and trying to figure out how we were going to still support my 7 year old's needs with all that was going on in our family. At this meeting, after discussing field trips and birthdays, Mrs. Brown nervously announced that the 2nd graders in the school this year would not have regular homework, maybe the occasional project a couple of times a year, but no weekly spelling words or math worksheets. That's right, she said, "NO HOMEWORK... for the wholeYEAR!"

Ms. Liza Brown* explained that her team of teachers had done a literature review and had found the research did not show homework to be effective. She explained that students would be participating in a differentiated spelling program and would be working on individualized spelling strategies at school, no need to drill and kill weekly spelling lists. She encouraged us to read with our children as much as possible, but no reading logs needed to be signed. She warned us of a few projects that might appear over the course of the year, that would need some support at home, and let us know we would always hear about them with plenty of time to complete them or to ask for help.

The parents had some questions, but then as the reality sank in, relieved smiles began to travel across the room. I wasn't the only parent wondering how we were going to find time for spelling lists and math flashcards...

I didn't realize at the time how HUGE this would be for me: to be able to spend what time I had with my daughter in ways that were meaningful, to know that my daughter was getting play time - even if I couldn't be with her - to have one less task to feel guilty about not doing when things were really bad caring for my mother. Don't get me wrong, my daughter may not have had traditional "homework" but she did plenty of work at home last year. Here's the catch, it wasn't assigned, it was learning she was inspired to do:
  • For a while she got very excited about writing stories. She would get out paper and write stories about characters she invented and then read them to us. Then she would take them in to school and her teacher would let her read them to the class. I resisted the urge to correct all her spelling mistakes and make her rewrite them. After all, this was for FUN, and my daughter was enjoying writing more than she ever had, without fear of the red pen.
  • Another afternoon, my daughter demanded that my husband take her to the public library after school. When they returned she had checked out a children's biography of Mahatma Gandhi and proceeded to read all 80 pages of it over the next few days. When I asked her about her choice, she said she had been inspired when her teacher read her a biography of Jane Goodall, and she wanted to write her own biography of someone important.
  • When it came to science, she chose to spend free time researching the insect she chose for her insect report. She spent hours and hours looking up pictures, articles and youtube videos about the giant burrowing cockroach. (Sometimes I wonder if she is overly influenced by her science teacher mother.)
  • When her class designed and built a "critter city," my daughter chose to build the hospital, a place she knew all too well, redesigning it with bright colors and open spaces that I wish were part of more hospitals.
Her math scores improved, she moved up in reading groups, she developed a love of writing, and more importantly a love of learning. With 3 weeks of summer left, she has already asked to get her backpack, school supplies and first day outfit. She is READY for 3rd grade. I am so lucky, she was placed into a "no homework" classroom in this very difficult time in our lives.

As I move into a new teaching year, I wonder what my daughter's experience will be like next year in 3rd grade and I take time to reflect on my own views on homework. With upwards of 125 students every year, chances are that LIFE will be hitting some of my students pretty hard too, some things I may know about, some may be things that aren't shared with me. I know I will think very carefully about what I ask students to do when they aren't at school. No absolutes here. I'm not going to hold myself to a hard and fast no homework policy. (Honestly, I have given less and less homework over the years anyway.) I will be more discriminating about what I assign, and think even more about what I can inspire in my students.

As I read blogs, and twitter debates on the subject, people quoting studies and experts, I hope that sharing my story as a parent will inspire you to be thoughtful about the homework you assign, and the home learning you hope to inspire.

*Thank you to Liza Brown, for being a great teacher for my daughter in this and so many other ways, and thank you for inspiring me to be a better teacher too.


Comments

  1. Thank you so very much for sharing this perspective and the experiences you have had. You are an inspiration to others and myself by being forward thinking and a risk-taker!

    ReplyDelete

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